Buildings, in particular office buildings, often include various enclosures for housing electrical equipment and electrical connectors. Intricate pathworks of cables connect the electrical equipment and connectors. Cables connect electrical equipment located in a main equipment room to telecommunications equipment located in telecommunications rooms on different floors, for example. Cables associated with the telecommunications equipment also extend into additional enclosures positioned in strategically placed zones throughout the different floors to establish electrical connections, such as ethernet connections.
These enclosures, often called “zone boxes,” house electrical connectors adapted to receive cables extending from the telecommunications equipment, typically positioned in locations remote from the zone boxes. Additional cables may extend out of the electrical connectors to specific work or coverage areas, to establish connections with a mix of local devices, such as personal computers, printers, workstations and certain video cameras.
Still additional enclosures may house communication devices, such as application specific control devices, adapted to process data received from remote locations, such as the telecommunications room or other remote locations where local devices, such as building automation equipment, reside. To accomplish the processing, the communication devices connect to zone boxes on the one hand and directly to the local devices on the other. In this way, two-way communication between the telecommunications room and local device may be established and maintained. Cable pathways, such as conduits, raceways, trays or ladders are often used to route these cables.
Thus, buildings utilize multiple enclosures for various devices, with cables running from the telecommunications room to zone box enclosures and cables running from various local devices to communication devices housed in other enclosures. This configuration results in a higher initial quantity of required materials, more initial installation labor, and more costly implementation of ongoing moves and changes to building systems.
There is a need, therefore, for an enclosure apparatus that accomodates various electrical equipment, connectors and cables. The enclosure apparatus is preferably easy to use and adapt to various building environments.